' Why, I've
knowed men," said Mr. Punt, in the manner of one who works himself up
to an almost incredible climax--"I've knowed men as couldn't tell the
difference between a linnet's note and a goldfinch."
"Astonishing," I said.
One of the canaries suddenly broke into a rich trill of song, as if to
add his personal expression of surprise.
"Now there!" Mr. Punt exclaimed, shaking a podgy forefinger at him.
"There's the bird as give all the trouble and cause words 'tween me
and Maria, 'e did. 'Artz Mountain roller, that bird is. Beeutiful 'is
note, ain't it, Sir?"
There really was a deep full tone, distantly suggestive of a
nightingale's, that favourably distinguished the bird's song from the
canary's usual acute treble.
"'I'm doubting, Maria,' I say to 'er," Mr. Punt resumed. "No longer
ago than this very morning I say it--'I'm doubting whether I did ought
to call that 'ere bird a 'Artz Mountain roller,' I say to 'er--me
meaning, o' course, as the 'Artz Mountains being, as some thinks, in
Germany, that pussons wouldn't so much as go to look at a canary as
called 'isself a 'Artz Mountain bird, as it might be a German bird,
for all as 'e'd never a-bin no nearer Germany than the Royal Road,
Chelsea, not never since 'e chip 'is little shell, 'e 'aven't.
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